


How Do You Measure Seven Years?

by ZenyZootSuit



Series: Kingdom As I See It [2]
Category: Kingdom Netflix, 킹덤 | Kingdom (TV 2019)
Genre: Accurate Depiction of Injuries, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Chapter by Chapter Warnings, Established Relationship, Falling In Love, Fluff, Graphic Description of Corpses, Gratuitous Smut, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-05
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:33:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,866
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24546952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZenyZootSuit/pseuds/ZenyZootSuit
Summary: Seven years Yeong-shin had spent with the former prince on the road, traversing the kingdom through thick and thin, seeking to rid it of the scourge of the resurrection plant. He had never been one to pay much attention to the passage of time before, and wasn't sure how to now. So, he decided, he was going to measure those seven years in love.OrHow Yeong-shin and Chang spent those seven years together
Relationships: Prince Lee Chang/Yeong-shin
Series: Kingdom As I See It [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1740082
Comments: 45
Kudos: 81





	1. Where We Begin

**Author's Note:**

> “Bucky, Buckyyyy did you really just name this after Seasons of Love from Rent?” Guilty as charged and I had a wonderful time doing it. Listen to the song and it might give you a clue as to what this fic might contain ;)
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: graphic depiction of injury and illness

*******

The sound of soft panting breaths filled the air, the only audible thing in the room save the occasional high pitches moan and the press of lips upon lips.

“Harder,” Chang whispered, arching his back into the next thrust. “You promised me harder!”

Yeong-shin sighed out a gentle laugh, fingers curling around Chang’s wrists as he leaned down to press his lips first to Chang’s pulse point, and then to his mouth. “So I did.” He adjusted Chang’s thighs around his waist, rocking into him.

Chang moaned. “Yeong-shin ah…”

The hunter hummed.

“Are you going to make me beg?”

“Now wouldn’t that be a pretty sound.” Yeong-shin kissed him again, deeply, and Chang would never tire of it, never.

They stayed like that nearly long enough for Chang to forget his request, what with the feeling of the hunter pressed so perfectly over him, inside him, his hands holding Chang down by his wrists…

(He did not think of his hands)

How he longed to run his fingers through the hunter’s unbound hair as Yeong-shin had been doing earlier for him.

_For the first time in a long time they had kissed that night, after Chang had pleaded with him and Yeong-shin had finally obliged, reaching up and pulling the bindings from Chang’s hair, letting it fall down his back. Yeong-shin had kissed him until Chang swooned, running his fingers through the strands and Chang had tried to do the same, but—_

He nipped at Yeong-shin’s lower lip impatiently and the hunter pulled back with a half smile.

“One of these days I will convince you to let me do this my way. But since I did promise…”

Yeong-shin let go of his right wrist— “Don’t you dare move that” — in favor of pressing his hand over Chang’s mouth. It was good that he did, because at the first rough thrust of his hips, Chang nearly wailed.

“Isn’t this better?” Yeong-shin murmured in his ear and yes, yes it was, Chang wanted to shout…

_It had been so long, so long since the battle, so long since the night before when they last had a moment to themselves. So long and now they were due to leave Hanyang in the morning (for good, forever, for the last time…) and once, just once, Chang wanted to have him in his own bed. So he had pulled the hunter from his post and into his rooms (everything exactly as he had left it the night all this shit began) and had kissed him, pleaded with him—_

_“Alright,” the hunter had murmured against his lips, the hands on his waist soothing him gently. “But you let me do it right this time. No rushing.”_

_Chang had opened his mouth to argue, but Yeong-shin cut him off._

_“No rushing, and I’ll do it however you want.”_

_Chang nodded, fingers itching to grasp at him. “Okay…”_

_“What do you want?”_

_Chang hadn’t been able to look him in the eye as he’d said, “I want you to make it hurt.”_

_The hunter had paused, frame stiffening for the briefest of seconds before he agreed._ _He agreed, but he had some conditions first._

_Chang would never complain about the preparation again. He hadn’t known…well, he had what he’d read and heard, but he hadn’t known…_

_“I can make it hurt,” Yeong-shin had said, three fingers deep and just a hint of a smile on his face. “Without actually hurting you.”_

_“Just—“_

_“If it feels wrong, we stop. If there’s blood, we stop. It was my fault I hurt you before, I should have paid more attention and for that I am sorry. I won’t hurt you like that again.”_

_Chang had been about to argue that sentiment as well, but then those three fingers had rubbed over that spot inside him again and all words fled his mind._

Now, with his right arm wrapped around Yeong-shin’s neck, holding on for dear life as the hunter well and truly fucked the breath out of him, the only thing he could think was that Yeong-shin was _right_.

Like this, it was _so much better_.

It hurt. Each thrust of Yeong-shin’s hips made an ache pulse up deep inside him, but nothing said that something was wrong like it had the first time. Nothing about this felt _bad_ , no, quite the opposite.

It felt _divine._

Yeong-shin’s hand left his mouth and drifted down his chest to firmly stroke at his cock, teeth biting bruises into his collarbone and Chang stared up at the ceiling, wondering how he had ever lived without this.

When his orgasm hit, he thought surely he would die from it.

Yeong-shin fucked him through it, sitting back on his heels and holding onto Chang’s hips as he continued to press in slow, long, and deep. He kept at it until Chang was whining and squirming under him from overstimulation, but he couldn’t bring himself to ask Yeong-shin to stop.

“Come inside me,” Chang moaned, clenching around him. “Come inside me…”

Yeong-shin huffed out something that sounded like a laugh and then his hips were stuttering once, twice and Chang clenched down around him again—

Only to have Yeong-shin pull out of him and take himself in hand, coming with a low moan over his fingers. Then the hunter was looking down at him, a wide grin on his lips as Chang’s eyes roved over his form. His unbound hair, his firm body, his sharp eyes, visible even in the dim light…

Beautiful, despite the annoyance Chang felt.

“Why didn’t you—“ he began, only to be cut off by Yeong-shin.

“It is so terribly rude to come inside someone.”

Chang frowned. “Why?”

The hunter let out a deep but indulgent sigh. “Because it’s uncomfortable and very messy and only ends up being more of an annoyance than it’s worth.”

He slunk forward, looming over Chang like the prince could only assume tigers crept over their prey. It made him shiver.

“But if you’re so curious,” he drawled. “I’ll do it once and you can tell me what you think of it.” He bent down and caught Chang’s lips in a fiery kiss. “…But not before you’re sure to be on a horse for days on end. You’ll thank me later when you know.”

One last kiss pressed to Chang’s mouth and he was standing up, walking over to the basin of water that had been laid out earlier after Chang had said he wanted to sleep in his own room one last time.

Chang coughed, just a little, as he watched and Yeong-shin immediately turned to look over his shoulder, eyes flashing in the candlelight.

“Are you all right?”

Chang chewed on the inside of his cheek to temper his frustration at the question. “Yes.”

“Here, drink some—“

“I said I’m fine, Yeong-shin.”

The hunter came back over with a cup of lukewarm tea anyway along with the cloth. “Drink it anyway.”

Reluctantly Chang sat up, his hair falling over his shoulder as he did, and let Yeong-shin give him a sip or two of tea.

The hunter set the cup down and set about cleaning them both up. “You’ll have the use of your hands back soon,” he said reassuringly.

Chang’s heart throbbed painfully and he didn’t reply.

Yeong-shin finished cleaning the slick and come off of them and blew out the candles before coming to lie down next to him. Annoyance forgotten, Chang immediately curled into the hunter’s side, resting his head on his chest.

“Thank you…” he whispered into the man’s skin.

Yeong-shin chuckled. “Don’t thank me, I—“

“You know what I mean.”

Fingers combed gently through his hair. How wonderful it felt. “I do.” Then those same fingers were tilting Chang’s chin up and lips were kissing his gently. Lovingly.

Things had been…rough…in the month since the final battle, Chang wouldn’t deny, but they were coming out on the other side of it now. Through all of it, Yeong-shin had stayed by his side. For that, Chang was beyond grateful.

Chang curled into the hunter’s arms and let the slow motions of his fingers in his hair soothe his worries and lull him to sleep.

*******

If you had told Yeong-shin a year ago that in a year’s time, he would be in the royal palace with the rightful King asleep in his arms…

Well, that just would have sounded completely and utterly ridiculous and impossible, he would have laughed you out to sea.

But here he was.

As the prince—

_Not anymore, the former royal had insisted_. _Chang._

—lay asleep in his arms, he grinned up at the ceiling and held him just a little tighter.

How was it that he had gotten to keep this?

_I’m so lucky_ , he thought, thanking every god and spirit he could, at least until another thought dawned on him.

_At what cost did you get to keep this?_

Indeed, he thought, smile slipping off his face. The cost had been steep.

Steep as in giving up his rightful place on the throne, which had been the final nail in the coffin of Chang’s shattered soul. (The former prince denied the nightmares that shook him to the core, even though the dark circles were stark under his eyes. Further still he denied it when those nightmares walked out of his dreams and into his waking hours. Yeong-shin was no fool, he saw the way Chang looked at older men sometimes, as though he was watching their very heads roll off their shoulders).

And steep as in…what came after.

The former royal had agreed to stay in Hanyang and help Beom-pal and what was left of the council set up a rudimentary regency for the newborn King, until he could grow old enough to lead the kingdom himself.

Word was sent off to Ganghwa Island for Chang’s uncle to come and act as regent and mentor to the boy, and Beom-pal was appointed Chief State Councilor, a title that made the man shiver given who had held it last.

Yeong-shin had been on the crew cleaning up the bloodstained, burned, and mostly destroyed palace, the hard work harkening back to his early days as a laborer. With so many eyes on the former prince, Yeong-shin had not even been able to say two words to him after he had promised to go with him.

_Will you come with me?_

Whenever the work was hard or grueling or the memories too terrible to stomach (Yeong-shin, too, saw things. Namely, the mother he hadn’t been quite strong enough to lift back in Dongnae), Yeong-shin would think of those words. They would bring a wide smile to his face, and he would keep on working with renewed vigor.

_Anything for you, Chang._

That was all before the former prince had gotten sick. _Very_ sick.

Though Yeong-shin had been far away from him at the time, he had noticed over the course of several days the sallow, pale look Chang’s skin had taken. Initially though, the hunter had chalked it up to the ongoing stress and exhaustion of their situation. Then had come the wet rattling cough.

“I know,” Seo-bi had said when he mentioned it to her. “But he won’t rest. Not until his work here is done.”

In the present day, Yeong-shin shivered.

Chang’s stubbornness had nearly proven fatal.

One day, in the middle of a meeting, in the middle of a _sentence_ , he had simply passed out cold. Tipped right over, the ministers said, and didn’t get back up. He wouldn’t get back up for nearly a month.

_Pneumonia_ , Seo-bi said as Yeong-shin stared, horrified, at the feverish and delirious prince on the mat in front of him, hacking coughs echoing horribly around the room.

_It didn’t sound like him. It didn’t even look like him._

The sight had haunted the hunter’s every thought and he was not a religious man, but since he had seen Chang deathly ill on that mat, he had dond nothing but pray to anyone who would listen, every second of every day.

A few days later, Yeong-shin had been called in from his post by Seo-bi.

The prince may not have been in his right mind, but that hadn’t made him any less strong than he would have been healthy, nor did it improve his opinion of servants or eunuchs.

“He won’t let anyone touch him,” she said as soon as she heard Yeong-shin enter. “Except for me and even then, _barely_. And he’s strong, he’s already hurt two eunuchs today. Not on purpose of course, he’s terribly sick. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but I can’t take care of him properly like this—“

“I’ll do it,” Yeong-shin said immediately, eyes fix on the prince. “Let me help.”

_How much weight had he lost in a matter of days…_

“That’s what I called you here to do,” she replied, looking at him. “I know you care for him, as he does for you.” Had the situation been any different, such a comment might have scared Yeong-shin, but as it was he barely even heard it. “But do you have any experience caring for sick people?”

“I used to live in a leper colony. I have a lot of experience.”

“Alright then.”

After that, Yeong-shin had then been the only person a delirious Chang would let touch him. It both warmed his heart and scared him to death, because it showed how awfully _awfully_ sick he was even if it did also show how much Chang trusted him over anyone else.

Seo-bi was worried. His fever was not abating and his lungs were not clearing. She began to suspect his prolonged illness might have had something to do with his ruined hands.

_Yeong-shin had sat with Chang as Seo-bi had looked over the wounds on his hands right after the battle, and the damage had been extensive. Worn to the bone by the events of the past weeks, the physician had dropped all pretext of politeness._

_“I cannot believe you cut your palm open.”_

_“I had to cut something to lure the monsters away—“_

_She jabbed Chang in the forearm. “Look at this. This nice, lovely flesh here by your elbow, or over here on the bone. Not here,” she looked pointedly at his hand, “in an already terribly injured spot!” She shook her head. “I will clean and bandage this, but I am very concerned about the state of it. You will most certainly never regain the use of it now.”_

_Later, having finished cleaning and bandaging it, she looked up at him again. “Do you any other injuries?”_

_Almost a bit sheepishly, Chang had lifted his right arm._

_The horrified gasp Seo-bi had let out surprised even Yeong-shin, who had been dozing against the wall. Carefully, the physician prodded at the bones of his hand (making Chang nearly bite through his lip at the pain) and at those of his arms and shoulder._

_“You have shattered,” she breathed. “Every bone in your hand as far as I can tell…your wrist and forearm too may have sustained fractures.” The physician sighed heavily. “This bruising here,” she went on, almost as if talking to herself rather than Chang. “Is very concerning to me…I think you may have more damage internally than just broken bones. On top of all that, your wrist is dislocated and I’m feeling some swelling in your shoulder.”_

_She prodded at him for a few minutes longer before sitting up, appearing to choose her next words carefully._

_“I fear this is beyond my skill to fix,” she began slowly. “I do not think I can get this to heal properly, if at all, and hesitate to even try given your risk of infection with the cuts and the other damage to the flesh…”_

_“So?” Chang asked. Yeong-shin heard the tiniest shake at the end of the word. “What treatment_ do _you recommend?”_

_Seo-bi took a deep breath. “Amputation.”_

_Chang had choked on his own breath, as had Yeong-shin. The former prince had gone on to plead with her in a voice that shook for nearly an hour to just try and fix it. The biggest risk was infection? If that happened they would have to take it off, correct? Then why not try and fix it and at least leave him with two hands. Try, rather than just jump to the harshest treatment…_

_Eventually, Seo-bi had relented._

_“I’m going to have to manually straighten each piece of bone before I can cast it,” she warned him._

_It had taken her an entire evening to set and bandage his hand, wrist, and forearm, and 3 men to hold him down as she did._

_“Say it back to me again_ ,” _a tired Seo-bi had told a completely exhausted Chang at the end of it._

_“Use my right arm for nothing,” he breathed, drenched in sweat and slumped in the chair she had put him in, right arm strapped tightly to his chest. “Don’t touch the bandages. If something happens to the bandages, come to you immediately. There’s no room for error.”_

_“Good.”_

Now she feared her efforts had failed, despite Chang following her guidelines like a creed for fear of losing his hand. Since his illness, both Yeong-shin and Seo-bi had taken up that creed themselves, paying special attention to his wounded hands and making sure they had not gotten infected.

That night, Yeong-shin held a half-asleep Chang against his chest as Seo-bi removed the bandages on both hands to see what the damage was.

“If there is infection…” she had warned him. Yeong-shin hadn’t needed her to finish that sentence. He just held the prince tighter.

The first piece of good news they had come by in weeks was the sight of a clean, healing cut on his left hand and a still macabre but decidedly better and uninfected right hand.

“There is hope still,” she had said with a smile.

Yeong-shin had nearly cried with joy.

It had taken Chang another three weeks to fully regain consciousness after his battle with pneumonia. Through all of it Yeong-shin rarely left his side, even to sleep or eat. The hunter kept him clean, fed him sips of broth or tea whenever he could, prevented him from jarring the bandages on either hand, soothed him through the dreadful nightmares and fever-dreams he suffered, and shifted him around to keep him from getting sores on his back (his sister had gotten those once, during a period when she had been very ill. Once someone got them, it was so hard to get rid of them. More than one villager had even died of them).

The many nights of staying awake watching Chang’s every breath for fear that any rattling one would be his last had taken its toll on Yeong-shin. So much so that one morning, five weeks after Chang had first fallen ill, when the hunter awoke to a quiet “Yeong-shin?” and he looked down to see Chang looking _at him_ with clear eyes, he had broken down in tears, sobbing so harshly Seo-bi had come running, fearing the worst.

She had hit and smacked him for scaring her (crying and rejoicing all the while) when she saw that instead of the worst possible outcome, they had somehow come by the best.

“He wouldn’t have survived without your care,” Seo-bi later told him.

Yeong-shin had simply shaken his head, unable to bear even thinking such a thing.

Even after Chang recovered, the hunter continued to take care of him as much as the former royal would let him. His hands were still healing and Seo-bi still feared infection or further injury. That did, however, prove difficult.

The former prince had been _mortified_ when he’d learned exactly how long he had been sick and _how much_ care he had needed, especially when he learned it had been Yeong-shin to provide him with that care. He hadn’t been able to look Yeong-shin in the face for two weeks after he regained consciousness, but neither could he stand allowing eunuchs to help him.

_“He tried to take a bath by himself,” Seo-bi informed him when he arrived on the scene of two penitent eunuchs and a pissed-off physician._

_Yeong-shin nodded to her patiently. “Don’t worry. I’ve got it.”_

_“Bring him to me when you’re done, I’ll need to redo his cast.”_

_Yeong-shin wasn’t going to mention that until after they finished getting him cleaned up._

_Behind the door, the hunter came upon quite the mess. Water all over the floor along with several other things (undoubtedly dropped accidentally) and Chang, partially undressed and nearly in tears, sitting in the middle of it._

_Yeong-shin had given himself a moment to take it in before crouching down in front of a mortified Chang with a kind smile._

_“I’m sorry…” the former royal had whispered, shaking his head. “I tried to do it myself. I’ve made such a mess…”_

_“It’s okay,” Yeong-shin answered, brushing a piece of hair out of Chang’s face. “Let’s get you cleaned up first and then we’ll worry about the mess. Sound good?”_

The hunter didn’t mind helping him, not in the slightest. He did his work with a wide grin on his face because if he was doing this work, then that meant Chang was _alive_ , that the love of his life would _live!_

One night, Yeong-shin had been helping him eat dinner (Chang couldn’t yet hold _anything_ with either hand, let alone something like chopsticks that required a certain degree of dexterity) when suddenly the former prince buried his face in the crook of his arm, dreadful embarrassment coloring his features as he bit out, “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?” the hunter asked, putting the chopsticks down.

_“This!_ ” the prince half-shouted. “You’ve only known me for a matter of months, why do you care about me so much?!”

_God, I love you_ , Yeong-shin thought, the sound of Chang’s voice still making him smile every time he heard it.

“I guess you must be special,” he had said, affection flooding his voice.

In the present day, Yeong-shin sighed, gently rubbing Chang’s back.

He was tired, but did not really want to sleep. He shivered at the very thought of it. Nightmares had already plagued him for years, but now they had taken on a new form.

He had thought the monsters would be the ones to appear in his dreams from then on, rather than just the lifeless bodies of everyone he had ever known, but no. No…

He hadn’t been able to imagine it before, but there were dreams so much worse than those.

Like the ones of Chang, lying on his mat and breathing like when he had been ill. If one could have even called it breathing. The awful, wet, hacking sounds… Like he was drowning, all day every day.

_He lived_ , Yeong-shin reminded himself. _He’s alive, right here in my arms._

Only in Yeong-shin’s nightmares he didn’t survive it. In his dreams, he would fall asleep by the mat to the sound of Chang’s labored breathing only to wake up again and find his body stiff and cold. The sight of Chang motionless on his mat quickly morphed into Chang motionless and blue on the ice, having drowned under it, of him choking to death on his own blood, throat torn out by a monster—

Yeong-shin bit his lip hard to stifle a sob and clutched Chang so tightly to him he half feared it would wake him up, but he couldn’t bring himself to let go.

_After everything, you will not die._

_I won’t let you…_

Yet the events of the past two months had only served to impress upon him how much was still out of his control.

It took Yeong-shin a long time to fall asleep that night as he silently cried into Chang’s hair.

*******

This was it. This was the morning.

Today, they would leave Hanyang for good.

What was to follow after that was as of yet unclear to Chang. They would return to Sangju first, he supposed, and there they would being their research on the disease that made the monsters and coordinate the effort to exterminate those that remained in the countryside.

Exactly how they would do all of that…

The former royal sighed and shifted, easing the morning stiffness out of his bones and looking up at the face of his still-sleeping partner.

His Yeong-shin…

Chang still felt the hot flush of embarrassment every time he looked at the man. He was very grateful of course. Seo-bi had impressed upon him that if not for Yeong-shin’s efforts, he most certainly would not have survived his injuries and illness.

But…

But Chang had always been an independent man. The thought of anyone, let alone someone he had known for so little time, having to care for him so fully… He should not have had to do that. Somehow, Chang should have been stronger.

He silenced the thoughts, seeing as there was nothing he could do to change the past.

The hunter turned towards him, reaching out for him in his sleep. Chang melted into his arms and curled closer. Pressed together as they were, Chang could feel the hunter’s hardness brush against his stomach. Slowly, Yeong-shin’s eyes opened and the hunter smiled at him when he saw that Chang was awake (sheer the amount of affection contained in Yeong-shin’s eyes never ceased to amaze him).

“Good morning,” he murmured, his rough fingers tracing gentle patterns over Chang’s back.

Chang kissed him and the hunter responded indulgently, returning it deeply as he dragged a hand up through Chang’s still unbound hair.

_There had been_ …Chang thought as they kissed, as heat built up low in his belly. _One other thing he had had on his mind to try the night before…_

Balancing himself on a forearm, he swung a leg over Yeong-shin’s hips. The hunter’s hands immediately came to hold him by the waist, thumbs stroking over the skin there.

“You’re eager,” he teased as he ground his hips up against Chang’s ass.

Then his fingers were questing into Chang, still slick and open from the night before, and the former prince was moaning low in his throat, mouth pressed to the hunter’s collarbone as his own cock stiffened.

The hunter caught him with a hand through his hair and brought their mouths together again as he pressed his fingers to that spot inside Chang.

“I cannot _wait_ ,” he murmured when he broke the kiss. “To have real privacy with you. All the things I want to show you…”

Chang whimpered as he withdrew his fingers and pressed the head of his cock to his entrance.

“Sit up for me,” the hunter whispered, breath ghosting over Chang’s mouth and the prince complied, Yeong-shin’s cock sinking into him as he did.

He would never get over the feeling of having the hunter inside him. Nothing he had ever experienced before had ever felt so good, and he couldn’t believe that there was anything in this world that could feel better.

But, initial wash of pleasure aside, it soon became apparent how terrible of an idea this had been.

Chang quickly found that sitting straight up to ride someone was _tiring_ and that it wasn’t the best angle either. He kept wanting to lean forward, brace his hands on Yeong-shin’s chest, except for the part where he couldn’t brace his hands on _anything._

He hissed sharply as he accidentally did, pain shooting up his forearms and already killing the mood, only to have him lean too far back. He would have fallen over completely had Yeong-shin not reached up to steady him.

Cradling his ruined hands to his chest, he ducked his head and hid behind his unbound hair, utterly mortified and so _frustrated with all this_ that he could have cried.

Yeong-shin sat up then, wrapping his arms around Chang’s back and nuzzling under his jaw. He was still hard inside him.

“Hey,” he murmured. “It’s okay.” He pressed a quick kiss to Chang’s throat. “Do you want to stop?”

Part of him did. Part of him wanted to sink into the floorboards and never show his face again, but another part of him —a larger part— leaned into the closeness, his lover’s soft touch, and his cock began to stiffen again.

“No,” he breathed against Yeong-shin’s mouth.

“Then let me help you.”

Chang thought to balk at the suggestion that Yeong-shin help in in yet _another_ aspect of his life, but his protests were silenced at the firm grip Yeong-shin took up on his hips and the first thrust of his cock up inside him.

A moan punched its way out of Chang’s throat as he threw his arms around Yeong-shin’s neck and tossed his head back.

“That’s it,” the hunter sighed out.

Doing it like that turned out to be…not so bad. They could kiss the entire time and it wasn’t as tiring as the hunter guided him to roll his hips in time with his thrusts. Chang was able to shift over him to get _just_ the right angle.

Yeong-shin saw that Chang came first as he always did, on his cock (Chang shivered at the filthy imagery), before lifting him up off of him and finishing himself off with his hand. The hunter kept kissing him then, long after the aftershocks had faded.

“You are magnificent,” he murmured between kisses. “Absolutely magnificent.”

Chang might have blushed a little at the praise.

All too soon, though, Chang had to pull himself away.

“We should get dressed,” he murmured, eyes still fixed on Yeong-shin’s face. “Before they come looking for us.”

The hunter nodded.

Chang did as much as he could do himself without the use of his hands, which was all together not much. Still, it was more than he could do last week, so he bit his tongue and swallowed his damnable pride.

Fully dressed in his robes, he sat in front of Yeong-shin as the hunter tied up his hair (he had learned how to do it with a sangtu just for Chang).

“You know it’s no shame to need help sometimes,” Yeong-shin said. “Everyone knows you’re perfectly capable under normal circumstances. _I_ know you’re perfectly capable. And you’re doing a lot better than I would be in your shoes.”

Chang didn’t reply, staring dully ahead at nothing. It was better than staring at his hands.

Finished with his task, Yeong-shin had just moved to get dressed himself when something dawned on Chang.

“Yeong-shin!”

The man turned to him.

“Wait a moment.”

The hunter furrowed his brow but watched as Chang disappeared into a back corner of the rooms. When the former prince returned, he was balancing silk robes on his forearms.

“I…or rather the regency…made the decree that anyone who fought in the battle here may wear silk. I found these for you.”

The hunter stared at them for a long time before he tentatively reach forward and took them, fingers feeling over the smooth material.

“Especially after…everything you’ve done for me…” Chang went on, eyeing him intently to see how he would respond.

Yeong-shin held the robes a second longer. “This…will get me thrown in jail rather quickly.”

“But the…”

“No one will care enough to listen if I tell them about that decree. One look at me and the brand on my back and they will think that I am lying on principle.”

“I—“

“You are not the Crown Prince any longer to tell them otherwise.”

Chang flinched. So did Yeong-shin.

“I’m sorry…” the hunter breathed. “I didn’t—“

“Why are you sorry?” Chang asked tiredly. “You’re not wrong.”

Yeong-shin seemed to mentally kick himself as he straightened his back. “Thank you…for these. I did not mean to let my bitterness get in the way of such a fine gift… For you, I’ll wear them today. And on special occasions.”

Chang nodded stiffly and turned to leave. _That had not gone over as planned._

“Chang, wait.”

The former royal paused, heart warming ever so slightly at the sound of his given name on the man’s lips.

“I understand it’s difficult to leave your home for an unknown future,” the hunter began. “I promise I’ll teach you everything you need to know about living on your own, so you can fend for yourself without difficulty if you ever need to.” He paused for a moment. “But until I’m certain you know everything I know backwards and forwards, I just want you to know that I’ll make sure you have everything you need to survive. That I won’t ever leave you behind. So you don’t have to worry about anything like that.”

Chang turned to look at the hunter as the man’s words grew stiff with an unknown emotion.

The hunter met his gaze. “That’s it.”

Chang walked back to him and kissed him. “What did I ever do to deserve your loyalty, Yeong-shin ah?” he asked when he pulled away.

The hunter smiled at him then, that wide smile of his Chang had grown very quickly to love so much. “Well, I already told you that, didn’t I?” And Yeong-shin kissed him again.

Chang was not sure what to call the emotion blooming in his chest, but he liked it, whatever it was.

Yeong-shin left the rooms first, as Chang took one last look around. So much learning he had done here. And laughing. Quite a bit of crying, too.

Before he shut the door for the last time, he made sure to take with him a strip of cross-stitch silk embroidered with the word _gratitude._

******

The next problem they encountered as they made to leave was that Chang could not ride a horse, much to the former royal’s unending frustration. Rather, he couldn’t hold the reins himself, making directing a horse considerably more difficult.

They got it worked out quick enough though, the hunter mused, relieved. Chang would ride behind him, and their supplies would all be packed on the horse Chang would ride when he could grasp again.

There would be no trouble, he assured the former royal and tried not to frown as the man’s shoulders sagged.

Yeong-shin knew he thought himself a burden without the use of his hands. He also knew that there was precious little he could do to challenge that thought beyond what he was already doing, so he let it go. Chang would work through it, in time. Yeong-shin would make sure of it.

As they stood overseeing the preparations, the hunter couldn’t help but run his fingers over the hem of his new tunic. The silk felt odd against his skin. So slippery and smooth. He had no idea how they made him look, but they certainly made him feel a bit like a royal himself.

_It will get a commoner like you thrown in jail, decree or no_ , his mind berated him.

_If you are in jail, you cannot protect him._

It was just for today. And special occasions. Besides, to refuse such a beautiful gift would have been outstandingly rude.

They bowed to those that had helped them (save Beom-pal, who sprinted forward at the last second to hug both Yeong-shin and Seo-bi, crying the entire time). The others bowed low to the rightful King as Yeong-shin helped him up on the horse.

The former royal’s face was perfectly strong and impassive, every bit as much as it had ever been as long as he was the Crown Prince.

Yeong-shin was so proud of him.

As they galloped away from Hanyang, Yeong-shin felt Chang turn, looking one last time upon the city he had called home for three decades, at the place he by rights should have continued to reside, from where he should have ruled.

Chang turned back around in the saddle.

If Yeong-shin felt him press his face into his shoulder, if he felt hot tears soak the silk on the back of his neck, he acted like he didn’t notice.


	2. A Promise Fulfilled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first thing they did was go back for Mu-yeong. Chang had promised after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: graphic depiction of a dead body, general horror

*******

“I promised him,” Chang said, his voice rough in Yeong-shin’s ear where he rode behind him over icy mountains and cold valleys. “Besides, someone has to tell him his son is King...”

Yeong-shin glanced over at Seo-bi on the horse next to them. The physician gave the tiniest shake of her head.

It was obvious the former prince was still not entirely in his right mind, wasn’t thinking clearly. That much had become apparent over the first few days of their journey when he had shown difficulty navigating through activities with more than one step, and a remarkable amount of confusion when it came to remembering the proceedings of past events.

“We can’t go back,” Seo-bi whispered to him as they stood just out of earshot from where they had left Chang with the horses by a still-flowing river. “He has suffered truly terrible traumas and I fear that...seeing Mu-yeong’s body as it would be now...”

She did not need to finish her sentence. Yeong-shin too had been concerned that temperature had not fallen low enough to preserve the fallen guard as he had been when they had left him. Even for a former soldier, poacher, and general outlaw like Yeong-shin, the sight of partially decomposed bodies still got to him (especially now with the monsters...)

Yeong-shin sighed heavily and glanced back at the former royal. “Do you think he’ll ever recover?”

Seo-bi eyed him cautiously. “Does that make so much of a difference?”

“No, I’ll stay with him regardless of what condition he’s in,” Yeong-shin replied without hesitation. “I just want to know.”

Seo-bi sighed. “Do you think any of us will recover?”

A fair point.

As they rode through the mountains the next day, Yeong-shin allowed them to fall a bit behind Seo-bi.

“Your Highness—“

“Don’t.” The former royal’s voice was tired as he rested his head on Yeong-shin’s shoulder. (He had dropped all pretenses in front of Yeong-shin and Seo-bi, which was for the best. They were hardly needed anymore and all of them were too wrung out to care about propriety)

“Chang,” the hunter corrected himself. “There’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

Chang hummed for him to continue.

“I know you wanted to go back for Mu-yeong...”

“Yes?”

The hunter took a breath. “Have you ever seen a dead body before?”

The former royal snorted with disbelief. “Is that a joke?” When Yeong-shin did not reply, he went on, almost a little angry. “Yes, I have in fact been present and aware over these past few months. Anything else?”

Right. Perhaps that had been a stupid question. Or at least a bad way to phrase it.

“Yes, indeed, forgive me,” Yeong-shin murmured. “I just want you to be prepared for what you might see.”

“You’re very thoughtful, but I’m not a damn child. And I daresay I’m well prepared.”

_“I come from a leper colony. I am well prepared.”_

_His fellow soldier had laughed at him. It hadn’t taken him very long to understand why._

_Dead bodies, piled everywhere from a battle long over. They looked different just sitting there than they had freshly fallen._

_Blood, still soaking the ground, and staining the material of his boots red._

_It had taken him weeks to get the smell out of his nose._

Suddenly shivering and not from the cold, Yeong-shin found his vision blurring as he stared out ahead into nothing. “It’s just that...” he began, age old images prodding insistently at his mind’s eye. “Months old bodies look nothing like those monsters...”

“They couldn’t possibly be worse.”

“They are,” Yeong-shin refuted, fingers tightening painfully over the reigns. “Especially when you know them.”

Chang was quiet for a long time. “I’ll be okay,” he finally said, voice a bit gentler. “I have to be. I promised him.”

Yeong-shin turned around in the saddle. “Let me do it,” he almost begged. “I’ll bury him for you, and you can pay respects to his grave. Remember him as he was. This is not something you need to see.”

The look Chang gave him was kind but exhausted. “I know you’re trying to protect me, Yeong-shin, but you don’t have to. I’ve seen enough. He was my friend. I need to do this for him.”

Yeong-shin snorted in frustration and something like desperation, unwanted memories battering the edges of his mind. Try as he might to shove the back and lock them away, they would not go. “And how will you with your hands? You can’t hold reins let alone a shovel.”

Chang merely stared at him. He did not seem offended, only disappointed.

Yeong-shin turned back around, a bit ashamed at the low blow he had landed, no matter how true it was.

“As you wish,” he finally said, bitterness and apprehension clouding his voice.

*******

The guard’s body had been every bit as bad off as Yeong-shin had expected it to be. Surprisingly though, the former prince handled it very well, letting out only a stuttering breath before setting out to find a proper place to bury him.

In retrospect, Chang really had seen worse, in the form of both his father and Lord Ahn as raging monsters.

Seo-bi and Yeong-shin did the digging of course, though Chang helped as much as he could, brushing away dirt and kicking at rocks and tree roots with his feet. Dusk was falling by the time they buried him, and both he and Seo-bi stood back respectfully as Chang spoke to his friend.

“I told you I’d come back,” he whispered, holding something in his hands. “I found your wife. And your boy. You have the son you always wanted.” He trailed off for a long moment. “...He’s King now, you know. You were right about the plot...and it worked too. Everyone who hurt you and your wife is dead now, but the boy is King in my place. He’ll be raised by my uncle and —you’ll never guess— _Cho Beom-pal_.” Chang chuckled softly. “Who would have thought it, but he turned out to be a good man.”

Chang knelt by the grave, the thing still in his hands. “Your boy will make a good and just King. A better King than I ever could have been. He will fix the things that are wrong with this kingdom.” The former royal reached forward and hung something on the small post bearing what Yeong-shin assumed was Mu-yeong’s name. A small scrap of cloth, by he looks of it.

“I am going to miss you, so much,” Chang breathed. “Rest in peace, my friend.”

Beside him, Seo-bi smiled. Yeong-shin couldn’t bring himself to.

*******

_He was standing in front if his sister’s grave, the only one whose name he could read amongst an endless sea of graves. He blinked, and then there was only the one. He blinked again, and it had been dug up._

_“Sister!” he pleaded, looking around. “Sister, where are you? Come back!”_

_A voice spoke his name, his given name, a name his own ears had not heard in many, many years. He turned around._

_There she was. Her clothes as rotted as her skin, bandages hanging off of her, terrible and decomposed like the body they had buried today._

_“You promised,” she said, voice accusing. “Why didn’t you keep your promise?”_

_“I’m so sorry,” he sobbed. “Forgive me, please, I’m so sorry...”_

_“No.”_

_He looked up, horrified. But he couldn’t see her._

_“I won’t forgive you. Ever.”_

_Then she was right in front of him, her one good eye clouded with hunger and rage like the monsters’, her hand covering his nose and mouth, and he was suffocating._

Yeong-shin awoke with a jolt and a shout, gasping for breath.

“Yeong-shin!”

Both Chang, who had been on watch, and Seo-bi were wake by then, sitting up and looking at him with concern.

Suddenly overwhelmingly sick, Yeong-shin shoved himself to his feet and managed to stagger no more than a few steps away before he doubled over and vomited, leaning heavily against a nearby tree for support.

“Yeong-shin!” he heard Chang cry, followed by soft footsteps and a much gentler whisper of his name. Seo-bi.

“Don’t touch me,” he managed, still coughing and spitting out bile, trembling from the nightmare. “I’m fine. I’m fine, don’t touch me...”

“A nightmare?” she asked, no judgement in her voice.

He didn’t reply, struggling to get his breathing back under control. _He had to be fine._ He had to look after Chang and Seo-bi. If he didn’t, who would? They were all he had left in the entire world, he couldn’t lose them too, he couldn’t—

_I’ll never forgive you._

He jolted hard, that voice sounding like it had been whispered in his ear, though no one but Seo-bi stood by his side.

“I’ll take your watch tonight,” she said kindly but firmly. “Rest as best you can. If possible, I will look for herbs tomorrow to help with calmness and sleeping.” She cut him off before he could protest. “We can rotate who takes them on a nightly basis. I believe we could all use them.”

It was fruitless to argue with her.

None of them slept the rest of the night. Seo-bi because she was on watch. Yeong-shin because that dream had rattled him to the very core. And Chang because, when Seo-bin turned her back, had reached for Yeong-shin (who would have thought the prince would be such a physically affectionate man, soaking it up whenever Yeong-shin would offer it and increasingly giving it readily). When the hunter flinched away ( _don’t touch me_ ) he simply sat beside him, staring into the fire and providing company in the lonely night. After a while, Yeong-shin let him rest one of his bandaged hands over his own.

_Do not cry. You do not get to cry._

He shivered, and Chang tentatively pulled him under his arm.

“You’re cold,” he said simply when Yeong-shin looked at him, even though they both knew he wasn’t.

_Be strong. You have to be. If you’re not, everyone dies._

But with Chang’s bandaged hand stroking over his shoulder, Yeong-shin _quaked._

“It’s going to be okay,” the royal whispered into his hair.

The hunter simply laughed. It was a cold and miserable sound.

Boy, would he be in for a rude awakening.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise there will be lots more fluff and smut int his fic! I just figure that if I'm going to go through the trouble of telling this story as realistically as I am able, then I better do it. Thanks so much for reading!


	3. Begin Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Chang learns how to fish, new things are explored, an honest conversations are had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last time I went fishing I was five. I’m now 21. Thanks to the website Take Me Fishing for the info for this fic. Shoutout to Raiya for helping me work through the kinks in Yeong-shin's character <3333

*******

“Easy now, don’t pull…yes, like that. No, don’t pull, what did I just say. And…” Finally, Chang managed to pop the fish on the end of his line out of the river, which Yeong-shin deftly caught in a net and fixed him with a broad smile. “And that is how you fish.”

Chang blushed just a little in memory of his last unfortunate attempt. “Doesn’t seem so hard…”

Yeong-shin shook his head. “It’s not. It’s more about patience than anything else.” He cocked his head, considering. “You could almost say it’s a poor man’s meditation.”

Chang cracked a small smile, looking down at the twitching fish in the net. “We’ll have to try for more then?”

Yeong-shin nodded. “Of course.” Then he sat back. “What are you waiting for?” he asked, a cheeky smile on his face. “Show me that you were paying attention.”

Chang did so, pulling the hook from the fish’s mouth, baiting it, and casting it out over the river just like Yeong-shin had shown him.

“Good.”

Surprisingly, it was not long before something tugged on the line.

“We’re in luck today,” Yeong-shin remarked. “Remember what I told you now.”

“Don’t pull.” He tossed the hunter a look, hearing his chuckling. “Let the fish tire itself out. Then start reeling it in.”

“Correct.”

He did as Yeong-shin had instructed and before he knew it, he had a fish on the ground in front of him.

“Look at that,” Yeong-shin said. “You’re a natural.”

“Hardly,” the former royal replied, still shivering a bit in embarrassment as he remembered losing his uncle’s first fish in days.

“Happens to the best of us,” Yeong-shin said, stretching back out and tipping his straw hat down over his eyes. “Since I’ve trained you so well, I’m going to take a nap. Wake me if you need me.”

Chang nodded, regarding the hunter affectionately before turning back to his work.

It took him much longer to complete the steps than Yeong-shin, who had the advantages of both experience and the full use of his hands. Chang still did not and, as Seo-bi had been reminding him repeatedly to prepare him, likely would not.

The bandages on his left hand had only just come off the previous week, even though the wound itself had long since healed. Seo-bi had elected to keep the hand still as long as possible in an attempt to get the inner workings to heal. Her efforts had not been successful.

Chang eyed the livid pink scar across his palm and tried again in vain to curl his fingers, to no avail. They were stiff and completely numb.

At least he could use the hand itself now.

Seo-bi had also deemed the fractures in his right forearm healed enough for him to use the cast in conjunction with his stiff left hand, _but don’t you dare try and move your fingers_ , she had admonished him.

At least he could now do some things for himself, and had begun to get quite good at using his arms like hooks to hold things, as he was doing now with the fishing pole.

He was grateful for even that.

Glancing back over at the hunter, it appeared he really had fallen asleep, a tribute to how exhausted he must have been. Chang knew well enough that the hunter barely slept, recently insisting on keeping watch all night every night until Seo-bi rose early in the morning, at which point he would shut his eyes for a few hours at most. Even then, his sleep was clearly plagued with nightmares and he often awoke more exhausted than he had been before he slept.

Chang could relate. The only reason he knew all of that was because he too was often awake through most of the night, far too tired and rattled by his own nightmares to sleep.

More often than not, shadowy figures haunted his dreams, refusing to show themselves but exerting enough of a sense of menace to have Chang awakening every hour. Other times it was just sounds, the sounds of metal cutting through flesh, the grinding of it on bones. Those he heard in every whisper of wind.

Most recently though, he dreamt of the ice. Of drowning. Of watching the monsters tackle Yeong-shin to the ground. Of Cho Hak-ju, turned into a monster like his father and Lord Ahn, staring him down and _charging_ —

None of that.

Chang let the hunter sleep, watching the river flow by and trying not to flinch at the sound of the rushing water, no longer calming to his ears. How could it be? It was one of the last things he’d heard before he nearly drowned. (His lungs still burned on bad days, though he didn’t dare mention it out loud. He was not oblivious to the fleeting terror in Yeong-shin’s eyes whenever a stray cough would leave him, nor the worry in Seo-bi’s glances).

Despite his uneasy nerves and mediocre fishing skills, Chang managed to catch a few more fish, enough for them to eat that night and dry a few for the road until they made it to Sangju in a few days. The river was plentiful, and Chang was grateful.

The concept of hunger was still a bit new to him. During the time they had been fighting the monsters before, adrenaline and stress had run so high, Chang could not remember ever being hungry. But now, with the warm summer weather having seemingly eliminated the threat of the monster (many piles of them had they run into during their journey, dead asleep even in the middle of the night), much of that stress was gone.

Yeong-shin had kept his word, made sure they all ate at least twice a day. Made sure Chang had everything he needed to survive while he was learning the skills himself.

A sharp gasp jolted Chang out of his thoughts and he looked quickly in the direction of the noise. Yeong-shin, no longer asleep, was sitting bolt upright, a look of sheer _terror_ on his face before his eyes met Chang’s and he visibly relaxed.

“Are you alright?” Chang asked, frowning.

“Fine,” Yeong-shin replied, a bit out of breath as he ran a hand over his face, eyes never once’s leaving Chang’s face.

“Nightmare?”

The hunter held Chang’s gaze for a brief moment longer before looking down at the pile of fish and utterly ignoring the question. “Seems you’ve done quite well for yourself.”

“I get them too you know.”

Yeong-shin ducked his head with a harsh sigh, but Chang was not about to let this go. Not after how much he had seen the hunter suffer.

“You can talk to me about them,” he offered quietly.

The hunter shook his head. “It doesn’t help.”

“That’s not what you told me.”

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” Chang shifted closer to him. “I know you think you have to protect us, protect me—“

“I do. Until you can hold a sword again, I am our only defense.”

Despite his annoyance, Chang cracked a smile. “Say that where Seo-bi can hear you.”

Yeong-shin grinned. “That is true.”

Chang’s smile faded then and he reached out, placing his hand atop the hunter’s. “All I’m saying is that...you and me...” he trailed off, struggling to find the right words. “It doesn’t have to be one way. You’ve taken care of me these many months. It’s only right that I return the favor, not to mention that I _want_ to help you if I can.”

Yeong-shin regarded him, expression unreadable, as he wrapped his fingers around Chang’s hand and bent down to kiss the back of it. “Talking won’t help me.”

“Then what will?”

The hunter smiled softly and leaned forward, catching Chang behind the neck and kissing him gently.

Perhaps it was an answer or perhaps it was a distraction, one could never really be sure when it came to Yeong-shin, but Chang melted into it regardless.

Since they had left Hanyang, Chang could count on one hand the number of times they had found enough privacy to share even a simple kiss such as this.

The camaraderie between them and Seo-bi might have been strong, the crutch of formalities long having fallen by the wayside. Chang nearly died of embarrassment the first time Seo-bi had called him “my lord” after spending weeks caring for him while he was unconscious, and with Yeong-shin...such formalities seemed ungodly silly considering they had slept together, never mind all the care Yeong-shin too had provided him with.

Besides, Chang was no longer a royal. That wound had up simply refused to heal or even scab over, to the point where he hated the sound of any honorifics at all in speech to him. So they spoke to each other like the family they were.

That said, Yeong-shin and Chang held no illusions about the general public opinion of what they were doing.

“Does it bother you?” the hunter had asked him quietly one night, Seo-bi snoring softly on the other side of the fire.

“No,” Chang murmured. “Does it bother you?”

“I do not give a flying fuck what a bunch of wealthy nobles decide what morality or decency is.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Even so, neither wished to alienate Seo-bi. It was one thing to have a mere sense of the bond between to people. It was another to openly see it.

Part of Chang wanted to deepen the kiss, wanted to pull Yeong-shin atop him and between his spread thighs, let the hunter have his way with him, but this was neither the time nor the place. The kiss stayed gentle, their lips carefully moving together as Yeong-shin stroked his cheek lovingly.

The hunter eventually broke away, an almost fragile look in his eye. “Don’t do anything stupid,” he said. “Stay safe. That’s how you can help me.”

“Stupid?”

“Like almost drowning in a lake or jumping off the back of a fucking horse.”

Chang blushed just a little. He hadn’t realized exactly how fast they had been going, nor had he seen that hill there. Yeong-shin had been rightfully a bit pissed as he pulled Chang out of the brambles at the bottom, say nothing of Seo-bi as she rebandaged his broken hand.

With a half smile and one more peck on the lips, Yeong-shin stood. “Let’s get these fish back to Seo-bi. I wonder if she was able to find those herbs.”

Chang nodded, standing as well. “Will those be enough until we reach Sangju?”

“They should last, yes.”

And so Chang followed him back to camp.

********

It was surreal to be back in Sangju. What was left of the army had managed to largely eliminate the plague victims by the time they even arrived, the smell of burning bodies permeating the valley and making both Chang and Seo-bi quite sick.

Not Yeong-shin though. The hunter simply stood there, rubbing both their backs and keeping a lookout as they pulled themselves together, a haunted look on his face. No doubt he had smelled such a thing before. Chang didn’t ask, still too affected by the smell. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

The citadel itself had mostly been cleared of refugees, the people having made their way back to their own villages to clean out the bodies of the monsters and rebuild their lives. With Lord Ahn gone, his second in command had taken up governance of the city. And he was overjoyed to see them.

“Your Highness!” he cried, overjoyed as he fell to his knees. Chang tried not to flinch. “It is so good to see you alive and well. We heard you had died!”

“Yes,” Chang replied, a dull edge to his voice. “Crown Prince Lee Chang died of plague in Hanyang three months ago.”

The man frowned, not understanding.

Chang bid him rise. “I need your help.”

Briefly he explained what had happened (the edited version, anyway). He told the man that the boy king had lived and would be raised by people Chang trusted into a benevolent monarch, whereas Chang’s own rule would have caused strife until the day of his death.

“My purpose now is to rid the kingdom first of these monsters, and then of the plant that makes them,” he finished. “And to do that I need a new identity and support.”

“Support you will have.” Then the man fell silent, something odd passing over his face. “Did you have a new identity in mind, you Highness?”

“Not ‘your Highness’,” he corrected. “No, I do not.”

“I have one.”

Chang raised an eyebrow.

The man told him then of Lord Ahn’s habit, begun some thirty years ago.

“He never had any children,” the man said. “But as long as I knew him he spoke of his son to all who would listen.”

“His son?”

The man nodded kindly. “I believe he was referring to you, my Lord. He thought very highly of you, cared for you very deeply. It would not be difficult to remake you as that son.”

Chang had to excuse himself for a moment, step out in the hall and wave the guards away, his fist pressed to his mouth as he stifled the waves of _grief_ that threatened to overwhelm him.

Memories through the years of Lord Ahn. His advice, his discipline, his teachings, his mistakes...

His love. His real father...

Chang pressed a hand over his heart, the pain choking him.

Eventually he managed to pull himself together and return to where the man was waiting for him to accept the identity.

Chang. First and only son of the late Lord Ahn Hyeon. Lord of Sangju. (In name only of course. He agreed to help with the governance of the city and the province in any way he could, but had to stay out of the public eye lest he blow his cover and be recognized by the people there.)

The people in power, the people who had helped Chang take Mungyeong Saejae from Cho Hak-ju, agreed to keep his secret and accept him as the previously secret son of Lord Ahn without question. They were in his debt, they said. Of course they would do it.

Chang disagreed. As far as he was concerned, he was in theirs.

Ahn Chang.

The former royal had never felt more proud, nor more grieved.

By the time the matter of his identity was sorted, it was already quite late, and the council of Sangju elected to reconvene in the morning fresh eyes (as Lord Ahn always used to say). Servants showed Chang and his companions to a series of guest bedrooms, which Seo-bi immediately disappeared inside. No doubt she had been looking forward to a moment or two away from her two wayward companions.

Yeong-shin on the other hand hung by Chang’s side, explaining to the guards at Chang’s door that _he_ was his personal guard now and _he_ would keep watch that night. A quick nod from Chang, and the other guards departed. Once they were out of earshot, Chang turned to Yeong-shin.

“Like hell you’ll keep watch, you must be ex—“

Then he was being pushed inside the room, the door shut carefully behind him as the hunter pressed him up against the wood. Even in the dark, Chang could see the glint in his eye and understood why Yeong-shin had wished for him to dismiss the guards.

“Oh,” he panted out, suddenly very, very hot.

“Oh?” Yeong-shin asked with a quick smile.

Chang kissed him deeply.

The hunter grinned into it, running his hands up the former royal’s back and to his hair, pulling it from the sangtu with practiced ease. Chang groaned in relief as the strands fell down around his shoulders, Yeong-shin’s fingers gliding through them and tilting his head _just_ right.

Chang pulled at the ties on the hunter’s robes, suddenly desperate to feel his bare skin after weeks without. Yeong-shin obliged him, kissing him unhurriedly as he helped with the ties, shrugging his robes from his shoulders.

“Shhh,” the hunter shushed him as Chang whimpered, frustrated with Yeong-shin’s easy pace. “We have all night.”

“Anyone could walk in.”

“You might not be the Crown Prince anymore in technicality, but to them you are still their ruler. No one will come in here without your permission.”

Chang’s breath stuttered in his throat as Yeong-shin moved to lick and suck at his pulse point. “And when they see...that my guard isn’t at my door?”

The hunter hummed, palming Chang’s cock through the front of his robes as he pulled at the neck to expose Chang’s collarbone.

Eventually they made it across the room to the bed on the far side, Chang falling atop it on his back, rather ungraceful in his want, as Yeong-shin slunk over him, eyes shinning like a predator’s.

Chang _burned_ beneath his gaze.

For once the former royal put up with Yeong-shin’s languorous pace, content to kiss the hunter until the breath fled from his lungs, luxuriating in the feel of his lean body draped over him as they relearned the feeling of each other.

Yeong-shin broke the kiss, leaving Chang thoroughly out of breath beneath him as he grinned.

“What do you want?” he asked, voice a low purr.

A thousand desires coursed through Chang’s body as he stared up at the hunter.

“I want...” he murmured, his unbandaged hand resting on Yeong-shin’s shoulder. “I want to do something for you.”

Carefully he pushed Yeong-shin back, sitting up himself. Apprehension flashed briefly through the hunter’s eyes and his body stiffened as Chang maneuvered him to lie on his back, but it was quickly replaced by desire as Chang crouched a bit awkwardly between his thighs.

“I want to...” he trailed off, his hand rubbing carefully over Yeong-shin’s clothed cock.

The hunter let out a sharp breath and he nodded, reaching for the ties on his pants and lifting his hips to pull them down and off.

Chang paused, a bit shy in the face of his still monumental inexperience. Yeong-shin, upon seeing the apprehension on Chang’s face, leaned up on an elbow and reach out to cup Chang’s cheek.

“You don’t have to—“

“I want to,” Chang whispered back.

The hunter nodded slowly, caressing his cheek. “Go slow.”

With a quick nod, Chang leaned forward and, tentatively taking hold of the shaft, licked Yeong-shin’s tip. The _sound_ the hunter made at the touch —a high pitch sigh— his hand tightening around the back of Chang’s neck, sent a bolt of heat straight through to Chang’s core.

Emboldened, the formal royal took more in, giving the head a gentle suck and he shivered as Yeong-shin moaned.

“Just like that,” the hunter sighed, petting his hair. “You can...use your hand...”

Chang did as he was bid, brushing the palm of his left hand up and down the shaft as he licked and sucked at the head, eyes shut as he listened to Yeong-shin’s sighs of pleasure. Slowly he grew braver and dared take more in, stroking his tongue over the thick vein on the underside. Glancing up, he saw Yeong-shin gazing down at him, eyes ablaze with lust as he pressed the back of his free hand to his mouth to keep quiet.

Chang watched the hunter’s chest heave as he moved his mouth up and down his cock. The taste was hardly the most pleasant of things, but the sounds Yeong-shin was making were so delicious Chang couldn’t bring himself to care.

Getting more comfortable with the motions, he dove down further, drunk on lust as Yeong-shin’s cock stroked along his tongue—

—until he went down too far. Yeong-shin caught him with a hand under his throat, attempting to stop his overenthusiastic movement _just_ as he gagged himself. Badly so.

“Careful,” the hunter breathed, not stopping Chang from pulling off him, eyes watering as his throat spasmed. 

Embarrassment at what was a painfully amateur mistake quickly brought a flush to his face and he ducked his head, wanting to continue but fearing how poorly his skill (or lack thereof) must have matched up to Yeong-shin’s.

_Yeong-shin had done so much for him, taught him so much and Chang could not even get through this painfully simple act—_

He felt rather than saw Yeong-shin sit up and brush the hair from his face, tipping his chin up to look at him. Then he leaned forward to kiss him, tongue gliding between Chang’s lips as he stole the breath from his lungs.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” the hunter murmured against his lips. “You’ve done much better than I did the first time I did this.”

Chang shook his head. “I—“

“My first time I actually made myself throw up. On his cock.”

Despite himself, Chang snorted. Yeong-shin smiled at him widely.

“Yes, talk about a mood killer. So don’t give me that look, you know nothing of embarrassment,” the hunter drawled, leaning back in to kiss him languidly. “Don’t ever be embarrassed when you’re with me,” Yeong-shin said, punctuating his sentence with soft pecks of his lips. “Okay?”

Chang nodded shakily, glancing back down at the hunter’s cock, caught between apprehension and desire.

Yeong-shin brushed a strand of hair from his face. “We can do something else. Don’t feel pressured.”

“But I…” Chang stammered, flush deepening on his cheeks. “You—“

“ _I_ am content to share with you whatever you are willing to share with me. It’s no trouble.” Yeong-shin pressed another soft kiss to his lips. “How could it be, when I’m having the best sex of my life?”

“Don’t lie.”

“I’m not.” He grasped Chang’s unbandaged hand and ran the back of it over his still hard cock. “It’s the best, because it’s with _you_. And don’t you dare try to tell me otherwise.”

As the hunter slotted their lips together again, Chang did not try, not wholly believing Yeong-shin when he said it, but also not entirely believing it to be untrue. It was not long before their passionate kissing and the feeling of Yeong-shin’s rough hunter’s hands on his chest and belly had the fire burning hot in his belly again.

Yeong-shin broke the kiss not long after in favor of ghosting his breath over Chang’s ear. “Do you want to keep going?”

Chang kissed him in answer, let Yeong-shin wrap an arm around his waist for a moment before he pushed him back down on his back. “Yes.”

This time when he dove back down, he made sure not to go too far. Yeong-shin cried out, hand tightening briefly in Chang’s hair as he arched his back.

“That feels so good,” he moaned softly as Chang sucked on the head. “So good…”

Chang kept it up, listening to the increasing pitch of Yeong-shin’s whimpers until the man was saying, “Careful….you’re gonna make me come…”

For the briefest moment, Chang pulled off. “Then come,” he said before diving back down.

Yeong-shin came in his mouth with a drawn out groan, grinding his hips lightly into Chang’s mouth. Chang swallowed, grimacing at the odd taste and before he knew it, he was flat on his back, Yeong-shin kissing him with such passion he nearly came from that alone.

“You…” the hunter panted into his mouth, grinding his hips down hard into Chang’s. “You are so beautiful.”

Chang blushed under the praise and moaned at the ferocity of Yeong-shin’s touch.“Yeong-shin ah,” he whimpered.

“What do you want?” the hunter breathed into his neck. “I’ll do whatever you want.”

“Please…” was all Chang managed to get out, feeling almost overwhelmed by the sensations.

Yeong-shin’s eyes glinted. “Wait just a moment.” And then he was off Chang and crossing the room to where their saddle bags had been set in the corner of the room, rummaging through one before coming back with brush oil that had doubled for them before as slick. “Let me show you something.”

Chang had no idea how long he spent on his back, Yeong-shin’s mouth pressing burning kisses to his lips, throat and chest as the hunter worked one, two, then three fingers into him, brushing them maddeningly over that spot inside him.

“Relax,” the hunter murmured into his mouth even as Chang whined, arching up in an attempt to get friction on his cock. Yeong-shin blatantly ignored it, instead focusing on the movements of his fingers inside him. “Not yet,” he hummed, drawing a nipple into his mouth and forcing Chang to muffle a cry into his bicep.

The orgasms Yeong-shin gave him that way —several of them— were the strangest things Chang had ever felt, leaving him gasping for breath and shaking with pleasure, all the while aching for more.

“Please,” he finally begged.

“Please what?” the hunter asked with a raised eyebrow, eyes dark with lust.

“Touch me.”

The grin Yeong-shin gave him was truly wicked. “As you wish.”

And then he was ducking his head down and swallowing Chang down to the root, while at the same time pressing his fingers against that spot inside him. Chang came —properly, _finally_ properly— with a wail muffled into his hand.

As his senses came back to him, he became aware of Yeong-shin sitting beside him, a rather pleased look on his face. He did not stay there for very long, eventually rising to find something to clean them off with and rinse his mouth out before he stretched out beside Chang.

“Rude,” Chang complained, though without any weight.

“What was?”

“Not kissing me after.”

The hunter chuckled. “Don’t give me that,” he teased even as he leaned down to press a warm kiss to Chang’s lips. “I haven’t forgotten the face you made last time I kissed you after doing that.”

Chang pulled Yeong-shin into his arms, burying his face in the hunter’s unbound hair.

He must have fallen asleep remarkably quickly after that, exhausted from the journey and bonelessly content from sex, as when he woke up all of the candles had been extinguished. Yeong-shin had covered them both up with the blankets and was now sleeping with his head pillowed on Chang’s chest, his palm flat over Chang’s breastbone. Except he wasn’t sleeping, Chang soon realized. The line of his body was stiff as a board, and as Chang’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he could see that Yeong-shin’s were open and he was staring straight ahead with a vacant stare.

“Yeong-shin ah?” Chang asked, voice barely audible so as not to spook him.

The hunter flinched briefly before he blinked and raised his head, thumb stroking back and forth over Chang’s skin. “What’s wrong?”

Chang brushed the motionless fingers of his left hand over Yeong-shin’s back. “You weren’t sleeping.”

“I was resting,” the hunter replied, voice completely neutral.

Chang regarded him carefully for a long moment. “Is something bothering you?” he finally asked. When the hunter remained silent, Chang pressed him a bit further. “Nightmares?”

Yeong-shin did not immediately reply, laying his head back down on Chang’s chest. But neither did he deflect Chang’s question.

The former royal sighed, wrapping him up a little tighter in his arms. “Can I ask you questions about them? You can just say yes or no, you don’t have to tell me anything specific.”

After a drawn out moment, Yeong-shin nodded ever so slightly.

Chang took a deep breath, choosing his questions carefully. “You’re having nightmares?”

“Yes,” Yeong-shin whispered.

“About things that have happened?”

“Yes.”

“The monsters?”

The hunter paused for a moment. “…Sometimes.”

“The war?”

“Sometimes.”

“Are those what are keeping you awake now?”

Yeong-shin shook his head almost imperceptibly and he shifted just a bit closer to Chang.

Chang’s brow furrowed as he traced his fingers up and down Yeong-shin’s back. “Is it something that’s happened recently?”

In his arms, Yeong-shin shivered. “Yes.”

“Was it—“

“When you were sick…”

Chang’s mouth snapped shut at the sound of Yeong-shin’s voice, completely silent as he brushed his fingers through the hunter’s hair in a way he hoped was reassuring.

Eventually, Yeong-shin continued. “I keep dreaming…of when you were sick. I used to sit by your mat all night…watching you. Making sure you didn’t stop breathing.” His shivering morphed into outright shaking. “I didn’t…Seo-bi said at one point that…that you might not make it. That you weren’t doing well and…and _that there was nothing more she could do.”_

Chang felt a few tears drip onto his skin.

“So I stayed awake, watching you breathe. And after a few days I got so tired and I couldn’t keep my eyes open, but I didn’t want to fall asleep even next to you because…” His words cut off briefly in a choked sob. “Because I didn’t want you to be alone. Because you were dying, you were dying badly and I couldn’t do anything, and if I couldn’t save you then at least I didn’t want you to be alone when you died, I wanted to be there with you…”

Chang hugged him as tightly as he could, heart twisting painfully.

Yeong-shin was flat out sobbing by then. “That’s what I dream about. I dream about waking up and finding that you died alone while I was asleep. I dream about you drowning in the lake when I couldn’t get to you in time. I dream about those _fucking_ monsters killing you. I dream about watching you die! And I can’t bear it…” His breath stuttered heavily. “So I stay awake. And I watch you breathe. To make sure…you’re not alone.”

“Look at me, Yeong-shin ah.”

The hunter did and Chang cupped his face with his motionless hand.

“I didn’t die,” he whispered. “Because of you, I didn’t die. _You_ took care of me when I was sick. _You_ jumped in the lake after me and pulled me out. _You_ jumped in front of those monsters and got bitten six times—“

“Eight.”

“—to give me time to break the ice. I owe you my life three times over Yeong-shin, I’m here because you _did_ save me.”

Yeong-shin shuddered in his arms, head coming to rest heavily on Chang’s chest.

Chang pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “It’s about time I returned the favor, I daresay,” he murmured. “I’ll watch over you tonight. I’ll talk to you until you fall asleep. Because if I’m talking, then I’m breathing, right?”

So Chang rambled on about nothing, reciting poems he had memorized, texts he’d read too many times, all the while drawing patterns on Yeong-shin’s back and holding him tight in his arms. It took a while, but eventually he felt the hunter relax, felt his breathing even out. Finally, as the first rays of light began to show themselves in the night sky, Yeong-shin fell asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there we have it folks! After the last one and what's coming, I thought some fluff and smut was in order even if I couldn't keep it totally angst free. Hope you enjoyed it! Let me know what you think :3

**Author's Note:**

> Caregiver!Yeong-shin brought to you by me, who is no longer employed as a caregiver and is very sad about it. Thank you so much for reading this far! Let me know what you think and stay tuned for a whirlwind of angst, romance, and suspense :3


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